Disclaimer: I don't own anything.
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The water turns pink with someone else's blood. She tries to rub it off her hands, where it dried after she checked for a pulse. There was no pulse. The guy was dead.
But it's fine now. She knew a hot shower would make her feel better. She stays under the spray for a couple of minutes, and then turns it off. She twists her hair and squeezes, trying to get rid of the water.
The raid had gone wrong. The SWAT team was late and the case was time sensitive, so 5-0 went in alone. Somehow, someone snuck up on her. She turned around gun raised, and he was seconds from pulling the trigger. She got him first.
She steps out of the shower, looking for a towel, then stops, startled. Steve is leaning against the door, staring. She ignores him, takes the towel from the counter and starts drying off. She should have gone straight home, really, but Headquarters had a shower for this very purpose and she thought, what the hell. She hadn't wanted to stay covered in blood for a second longer than she had to.
She runs her fingers through her hair, trying to untangle the worst of it. Puts on her underwear, unhurried, like he isn't there at all. He doesn't avert his eyes, pretend to be a gentleman. She's pulling a top on when he decides to speak.
"You okay?" Not a man of many words, Steve. She keeps looking straight ahead at her reflection as she answers. Tucks a strand of hair behind her ear.
"I'm fine."
It's the first time she's ever killed anyone.
"I'd have liked some privacy…" she trails off deliberately. He's not that easily distracted.
"You're on desk duty until you go through a psych eval." He announces flatly, watching for her reaction.
She turns to look at him but his face is closed off, unreadable, his arms crossed over his chest, his hands in tight fists.
"Whatever you say, Boss." She says after a small pause, going back to ignoring him.
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There's a black and white print of rusty train tracks on the wall to her left. The walls are a dull beige, and there are shelves full of knick knacks on either side of the window. The shrink is sitting in a green armchair across from Kono, looking both completely stress free and intensely interested in her life.
They've gone over the day of the shooting a couple of times, and Kono's getting restless.
"Look, I shot someone who was trying to kill me. Was it pleasant? No. Do I regret it? No. Would I do it again? Hell yes. I'm sure you can see I'm perfectly sane. So let's stop wasting each other's time, okay?"
The shrink nods her head several times and writes something down.
"Well, Officer Kalakaua, I can see you are dealing with recent events reasonably well and I feel it is safe to reinstate you to active duty."
Kono sighs in relief, sinking in her ugly armchair. "Thank you." You know, this lady isn't half so bad.
"However, I can also see you are under a fair amount of stress, so I will be recommending weekly sessions for the foreseeable future. How's next Thursday?"
Bitch.
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Desk duty hasn't been half bad, but she gets the feeling Steve is perversely pleased about her missing all the action, so when she gets cleared she heads to the palace planning to rub the damn form in his face.
When she walks in, they're gathered around the screen, going over some surveillance footage.
"Guess who's been cleared for duty?" She smiles widely, noting Steve's impassive expression. Chin looks glad and congratulates her and Danny exclaims in relief over having someone to do all the grunt work.
Steve just stares.
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She taps her fingers on the passenger side door, staring at the traffic in dismay. They're going to the morgue, but at this rate they won't get there before, oh, maybe 2014. Chin really should let her drive more.
She keeps up her nervous tapping, wishing the air conditioning was working. This car is crap, she thinks, looking over at Chin enviously. He looks calm and comfortable, as usual. She should ask him how he got to be this zen. But maybe it's a Chin thing. Wouldn't work for her, probably.
Chin looks at her and smiles.
"I'm really glad you got cleared, cuz."
Kono smiles back. "Thanks."
"Wasn't the same without you."
"Right." She says, rolling her eyes. "Wanna hug it out?"
"Shut up." Chin says, but he's still smiling.
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"So how are things at work?" Dr. Hale asks, pen poised and ready to scribble down anything relevant. Kono suspects the page is covered in doodles.
"Good. Things are good." She pauses, considering. Everything's pretty much back to normal. Even the staring. She shrugs helplessly.
"How do you feel about being back on active duty?"
"I'm pretty glad, paperwork can be tedious. I'm not really made for a desk job, either."
Dr. Hale looks at her calmly, apparently waiting for her to go on.
"I mean, I'm an active person, I surf, I run. That's the sort of thing I enjoy."
This doesn't seem to be going anywhere. Dr. Hale must agree with her because she changes the subject.
"How about your coworkers? How have they handled this?" She thinks about Steve, leaning against the bathroom door, watching her get dressed. She tries not to fidget. Shrinks are all about the fidgeting.
"I don't know, pretty much what you'd expect. My cousin was glad I got cleared right away, he seemed worried. We had a whole talk about our feelings and everything. You'd be proud."
Dr. Hale writes something down and then looks back at Kono. She doesn't say anything. It's like she's waiting her out. Kono doesn't like this game.
"Everything's back to normal." She says, because even silences seem significant to Dr. Hale.
"Is normal good?" The psychologist asks eventually, looking at Kono closely.
I don't know, Kono thinks.
"Yes." She says out loud. "Normal is good."
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Catherine stops by to take Steve out to lunch while he's still wrapping up a phone call, so she chats with Kono while she waits.
Kono likes Catherine. She's friendly and has a sense of humor, and she helps with a lot of cases. She likes Catherine, because with her around, the staring doesn't have to mean anything. She's like a girlfriend shaped buffer; Kono suspects that without her, work would be a lot more complicated.
So they talk for a while until Kono sees Steve hanging up the phone from the corner of her eye. She can tell the second he realizes Catherine is here, even though his face doesn't change at all.
"I think Steve's finished with that phone call." Kono says smiling. "You should go over there, surprise him." Yes, please, take him out to lunch, she thinks emphatically. He can spend his lunch break with his girlfriend and, you know, not staring at his female teammates.
Catherine looks towards Steve's office, smiles tightly and waves. "I think it's too late for that." She says absent mindedly, and makes her way over there. "It was nice talking to you, Kono." She adds over her shoulder. She doesn't say they should do it again sometime.
Kono turns to look at Steve, who hasn't stopped staring at her.
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"I've noticed you don't really mention Commander McGarrett much." Dr. Hale says in a faux casual way that lets Kono know she thinks she's up to something.
She shrugs.
"You don't interact much?" The shrink presses, uncapping her pen. Uh oh. Kono has been to enough of these sessions to know that is a bad sign. Like a warning: weird mind game shit about to go down.
"Not really." She says carefully. "I work with Chin, mostly."
"So you don't really interact with Commander McGarrett." Hale repeats, touching the tip of her pen to the notebook. This is feeling suspiciously like a trap. Kono waits, maintaining eye contact. She leans back on the armchair, rests her hands on the handles, palms up, open. Look at me, I am an open book.
"I'm not sure what you mean to ask, Dr. Hale." She says in an earnest tone, furrowing her brow in confusion. Dr. Hale gives an exasperated smile, leans back on her chair and crosses her legs, caught with her hand in the metaphorical cookie jar.
That's right. Psychology works both ways, bitch.
"Let me rephrase: is there something about Commander McGarrett that makes you uncomfortable?"
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